Road To Sierra

Similar to my expectations we managed to collect several hundred of almost every single mob present in the Winter Wood over the next few days of travel.

Except for the trolls and bees, of course. Trolls no longer appeared after the second day of travel so we only managed to collect a little over a hundred of them. Bees, on the other hand, only numbered in the upper double digits after our few days of travel.

At the end of our fourth day of travel away from the plateau we came to the deadwood border of the Winter Wood just a dozen or so miles away from the village where we made our first legendary equipment. The deadwood borderland was mostly home to ice rats and ice lizards, though, so we continued gathering those mobs to boost our sales after returning to Sierra.

It was one thing to offer mobs for contribution points within our clan, but as soon as we had what I decided was enough to start generating 'surplus' we started stockpiling merchandise. Even if the Golden Ferry could not pay the prices I anticipated it would not be very hard at all to sell at least half at overpriced rates on the forum.

As much as half but more likely only a third of the surplus would be put on display in auctions as advertisement, making it easier to sell the higher leveled surplus. With luck, we could even sell them for real money if people wanted them badly enough. The dozen or two elite mobs that we had collected could definitely go for actual cash.

For any mages who specialized in the crowd control and support styles of ice and water magic, these familiars were almost a necessity. While it was safe to assume acting in a normal forest like the Canfor region might lessen their abilities a bit, working in tandem with a player would more than make up for this. Especially when their lower levels were in the upper forties.

For the sake of Tragedy's Travelers, though, only mobs level fifty and over would be kept in the clan store.

To continue building up our stock of surplus creatures we did not Fast Travel through the deadwood borderland but instead traveled independantly of the wagon and our familiars. Each of us had either ran ahead, out to the side, or waited behind in a giant circle around the wagon with at least a hundred yards between us.

In this way we could experience our own confrontations and keep track of each other either by sight or sound through the still air and open frozen dead forestry. Even if one of us were stopped and fell out of formation, it was as simple to solve as jogging for a minute or two to catch up if somebody else did not come along to lend a hand.

I, of course, did not have much trouble dealing with the dozen or so birds or reptiles that would appear before me. Even with the brute strength of the ice lizards and other more mundane variations of tree dragons, there was little they could do to resist the tensile strength of my silk. This silk made up the padding and under layers of my own armor and its grade alone was higher than these B-rank mobs.

The most time I took was when an elite ice lizard over fifty with two normal ice lizards and five armored tree dragons all under level fifty showed up. The armored lizards seemed to anticipate my silk, throwing themselves into the adhesive streamers while using their tails to gather it up. In this fashion they allowed the stronger ice mutations to unleash freezing rays of mana that hardened the second half of my silk production while it was in the air.

In response to this, though, I merely held out my hand and produced a giant ice mana scale in the form of a kite shield that only grew larger and stronger under the pressure of their breath attacks. By the time the ice lizards were finished blowing kisses at me, my kite shield had grown into a pentagonal wall shield with a full fifteen inches buried in the frozen ground to keep it standing in front of me.

Once their area of effect crowd skills were used up, they had no choice but to writhe and roll themselves up in hundreds of pounds of cordycep silk.

When the village finally came into view I was surprised to find that their inn and tavern building on the main road at the front of the settlement were noticeably bigger and their stables were surrounded by parked wagons. It was clear that many other players had outgrown their starting lines and started making their way out into the world. I was both happy and displeased by this.

We had already laid claim to certain lands and such in the area thanks to the villagers we had made friends with through our business dealings but the village was low on my list of worries when I first saw these people. I had not received any alerts about my quest line with Evergreen but that did not mean other players did not find the grove.

Not only was it a permanent location but it had also seen some renovations and enlargement which made it clearly visible. Especially since the golem and us had more or less given it a driveway leading straight to the highway. It would be nearly impossible for nobody to have found it.

With an advanced copy of my lower leveled self to guard the place, though, I was at least somewhat confident in its protection. The golem alone was a powerful magical entity with no small amount of defense with its body made up of nature, but numbers usually played the biggest role in any fight.

As I grew closer to the village, though, my thoughts refocused on the here and now as I got a better look at some of the players wandering the village in the early evening light. As well as some of the caravan wagons parked behind the inn and tavern buildings. There were several different clan crests on their vehicles but only one was recognizable with its black and white design.

Fallen Monochrome. These guys should have come to Winter Wood from the capital and thus come along the mountains like most everybody else at the raid territory. What were they doing at this village bordering the central plains region?

Entering the village with all but the quickly chosen title of Boss Beast Master set to private, I more or less leisurely stroll down the highway through the middle of the village taking in the public information of other players. Mostly only their names were visible but most of them kept their clan and levels on display as well.

Just a minute after entering the town and I had already counted four players with Monochrome tags on their names. Their levels were all above fifty but none of them were over sixty. These were just some of the above-average players from my generation like the other players now visiting the village.

However, they were a too little too late to be of help to Monochrome so why were they still here? It was pretty much common knowledge that my team originated from the Canfor region's capital of Sierra so it was not impossible for them to have people lying in wait. Except, these guys were pretty much half of our current levels and would be useless to even buy time with.

Since we were in a civilized setting, though, I decided not to press my luck despite my existing ties in the area. If I just went up and farmed an average of five thousand experience from every player wearing Fallen Monochrome for a clan, I might be breaking the laws. Even if I was recognized by gods of different pantheons with an imperial knighthood I still had to at least wait until I paid my respects to the emperor before acting out indiscriminately.

If I had found them somewhere on the highway, though… I would not think twice before discharging an Arcing Geist Slash worth ten thousand MP through their entire traveling formation. If they numbers in a couple dozen players at level fifty, that would almost be my next level up. It would be their fault for wearing a bull's-eye as their clan tags.

Once I got halfway through the village and counted at least ten players with monochrome tags, I decided to test the waters by taking my name and clan off of private. There was no reason for these guys to see my level, just my name and clan alone should be enough for them to recognize my abilities and I. If not, then I had no reason to worry about these kids.

Within moments of taking my tags off of private I had attracted even the eyes of some of the NPC going about their business in the village. I was not far from either the smithy or the tailor's workplace so it was not surprising that I would be recognized by the locals. The players, though, barely noticed me at first.

After those initial few seconds, though, I received a sudden wave of second looks as recognition clicked in the minds of many of the players present. Even people without the monochrome tag were showing surprise to see me. However, unlike those with Fallen Monochrome hanging above their names they did not look unhappy in the least while the few I had my eyes on all had gloomy expressions.

They knew who I was and knew to worry about me, but none of them made any moves except to go somewhere out of sight. A few of them even turned their names and other information on private to avoid being singled out in the future the way I had done. I had intentionally made and held eye contact with each of them to pressure them.

Once these plebes were dismissed with a single look, the others all realized what was going on and at least half of the players present did not even bother trying to hide their laughter. They were well aware of the animosity between their clan and my party and were laughing mostly out of relief to not be included among them.

Soon after the surprise of the situations subsided, I found myself being crowded by a couple dozen players who were all excitedly asking questions about everything from my skills to advise about the Winter Wood. For a brief moment I was reminded of what it felt like to be showing off at my father's gym and then surrounded during my rest periods.

Before long some of the other members of my party arrived at the village and not far in the distance the wagon surrounded by familiars was clearly visible. I was honestly somewhat relieved to see familiars faces while dealing with this small crowd. Now, I could simply pass them off on my teammates!

There was not much that we actually needed in the way of supplies anymore, we had all of the manufacturing equipment and materials we would ever need. The only things we could really do here were sell things. So, once Merch showed up, I gave him a certain amount of our old surplus goods that were within the level fifty and sixty range to sell.

After that I sent the familiars with our wagon to set up camp outside the front of the village while I went out to visit the smithy. The middle-aged man was more than happy to see us again and was even amazed by the new equipment that I came with. He had seen many different kinds of materials despite being in a relatively remote location but never had he seen true demon-material equipment.

The best he had seen were demon bane weapons using the carbon from demons to make an advanced steel. This was something that our clan had in excess thanks to the raid dungeon, as well as the actual skins and bones and other materials from the demons themselves. There was so much that even our Clan Fodder had made basic suits to inspire their level growth.

Since the village was small it was run democratically by popular vote of the business owners and a few elected elders. The smith actually sat in both seats and thus had worked hard in securing us land rights in the area. The village itself had a large amount of land available for expanding into a town but had little reason or resources to do so.

Now that 'Travelers' had become a population, though, it was not impossible for this village to generate a few new forms of business and thus grow into a small town. In this way, our previous down payments had secured about a dozen acres on which we could construct a small facility related to Travelers and dealing in beasts more than anything else. It would essentially be a zoo where people could buy familiars popular to the region.

Since it would only help our relations to continue putting money into the local economy rather than do the work with my own magic, I added a thousand old gold to the down payment to pay for the material procurement and manual labor. Now, this thousand gold was ten times its previous value as far as the NPC were concerned and would cover even more of the village's growth costs.

With the extra money I had shoved up the village's ass, they could afford to expand their minute lumber industry and attract more NPC villagers as the Traveler presence grows and reassures the local security. The current NPC were not weak by any means, but they were all profession oriented with only a dozen or two youths and some retired legionnaires to train them for security.

Considering the rate of growth for the average player base, it would only be another week in the game before the player presence in this village grew from dozens to a couple hundred. They simply did not have the facilities to house all these people and thus the village would focus on expanding their hospitality services.

After spending an hour or so discussing these plans and funds with the local smith, I left the village for my team's camp just down the highway where my party and I convene for a short meeting.

Our own numbers may not have been high, but our players were all above average in skill or profession levels and at least a third of them originated from Sierra. With the reach of player hunting grounds expanding in the wake of our travels, it was not enough for us to secure some land and set construction in motion. Other groups would either be inspired by us or seek to compete with us and to minimize the risks this entailed we needed a permanent and reliable presence in the area.

After coming to a quick consensus, we decided to test our clan members by putting up an announcement seeking thirty volunteers to be garrisoned here in the village bordering Winter Wood. There were no special rewards besides special treatment from the villagers and rights to hunting the surrounding lands but those also came with the responsibilities of protecting the village.

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